- If you haven't listened/read it, I think the Ezra Klein interview with Alex Bores (who formerly worked at Palantir) and how he talks about how it was in 2014 vs now.
It's also insane that a PAC campaigning against Bores is funded by current Palantir employee Lonsdale. Their critical ads literally criticize him for working for Palantir.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcas...
by throwaway302340
0 subcomment
>Join as skynet developer for EvilOrb corporation run by an actual cartoon villain
>Skynet trained by the IDF in Gaza
>Blows up an elementary school in opening strikes of new war
>SurprisedPickachuFace.webp
- Everyone in this industry should be required to read Careless People by Sara Wynn-Williams about her tenure at Facebook. Not because the book is about how evil Meta/Facebook is as a company but because you get to see the lengths people go to mentally convince themselves they are the good guy. Repeatedly in the book she tries to assure herself she's making the world better and that there's actually an ethical, positive company inside Facebook and she just had to navigate the politics to make it known despite all evidence to the contrary.
by asdfman123
3 subcomments
- I'm sure this is especially true of Palantir employees, but I feel like everyone in big tech is increasingly wrestling with this. (Don't ask me how I know.)
by leonidasrup
15 subcomments
- Palantir employees should understand that they are not regular employees at a regular company. They are U.S. defense contractors at an U.S. defense company.
Also Palantir customers should understand that by buying Palantir services/products they are doing business with U.S. defense company.
I don't say that this is positive or negative, it just clarifies the relationships and it should set the expectations.
- I’m not being facetious when I say: are they that slow or really suffering from Messiah Complex?
I have no problem that they are doing what they’re doing. Someone was going to do it. But to be so oblivious to it is a problem. One would argue that it’s a national security problem.
- Seems analogous to employees of a missile manufacturer being upset that their missiles were used for their intended purpose.
by theturret
5 subcomments
- As I said in another comment, I think it’s important to debate what these companies are doing, how they’re doing it, and whether the United States’ actions are morally and legally justified.
But I also think we need to get more smart people interested and working in national security. That’s the way you get the best balance between effective security and the minimum negative side effects to civil liberties or collateral damage, by having the smartest people inside these companies coming up with the best tech while also shaping the conversation from the inside.
It’s easier to just dunk on the big bad company (and maybe they are bad!) but I don’t think that solves anything. National security should be something more people participate in, not less.
by _-_-__-_-_-
0 subcomment
- https://archive.is/veTal
- > ...about working for a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb.
Wasn't the the problem that Sauron had one so he could corrupt the other users through the orb, but the orb itself was not corrupting?
by whatsupdog
0 subcomment
- With Facebook laying off 10% employees today, and others following suit soon, I don't think palantir will ever run out of willing people to hire.
- I watched the James Bond movie Spectre recently and came away feeling like the Spectre organization and Ernst Stavro Blofeld were modeled on Palatir.
- Hey, it could have been worse; at least they're not working in ad-tech.
by BugsJustFindMe
0 subcomment
- Only "starting" to wonder does not speak well of Palantir employees.
by ethagnawl
1 subcomments
- I look forward to all of these comments being Hoovered into their autonomous surveillance machine in short order.
Also, yes, they are.
by pedalpete
1 subcomments
- 55% Palantir revenue comes from government contracts and 50% from the US govenment.
With this "are we the bad guys" perspective, I wonder how much of the "evil" they are apparently doing is a result of the current view a majority of people globally have with the current administration?
Though we may find it difficult to separate the two, because it seems leadership and the founders of Palantir are supportive of, and in some ways responsible for, Trump getting elected, but with different leadership using the tools in different ways, would we still consider Palantir the bad guys?
- https://archive.ph/9UjjI
by hn_user82179
4 subcomments
- > “I’m curious why this had to be posted. Especially on the company account. On the practical level every time stuff like that gets posted it gets harder for us to sell the software outside of the US (for sure in the current political climate), and I doubt we need this in the US?” wrote one frustrated employee. The message received more than 50 “+1” emojis.
> “Wether [sic] we acknowledge it or not, this impacts us all personally,” another worker wrote on Monday. “I’ve already had multiple friends reach out and ask what the hell did we post.” This message received nearly two dozen “+1” emoji reactions.
> “Yeah it turns out that short-form summaries of the book’s long-form ideas are easy to misrepresent. It’s like we taped a ‘kick me’ sign on our own backs,” a third worker wrote. “I hope no one who decided to put this out is surprised that we are, in fact, getting kicked.”
entirely possible they're phrasing their concerns on the corporate slack to be 'pro-company' so they don't worry about getting fired for their views but it doesn't actually sound like they're wondering anything, they're just bothered that it's being brought to light.
- No need to wonder
by anonymousDan
0 subcomment
- Hint: you are and always have been
by chromacity
4 subcomments
- I think this is a weird side effect of how we portray evil corporations in fiction and in journalism. We imagine that everyone working there is a moustache-twirling villain. And then we get a job at Meta or Flock or Palantir, look around, and don't see any moustache-twirling villains. There's no one saying "ha ha, we should hurt people just for fun". So, it must be that we're the good guys.
Even if some of the outcomes seem reprehensible, it's not really evil because we're good people. We do it in a responsible and caring way. We're truly sorry that your grandma is now hooked up on endless AI-generated slop, but shouldn't the media be talking about all the other grandmas whose lives are enriched by our AI? We have strict safety rules for the types of cryptocurrency ads that can target the elderly, too.
- Thought it was an onion article at first glance.
by quantified
0 subcomment
- Palantir is not wrong that AI diminishes the power of Democrat and more-educater women voters. It will just diminish Republican and less-educated male voters too.
Unless it is being trained and applied to suppressing certain groups. Karp said a not-so-quiet goal out loud.
- Weird. I worked near a Palantir office in 2017 and I remember thinking it would be "morally challenging" to work there. 9 years later, it's just becoming apparent?
- Palantir delenda est
- While I believe it's good that we call it out, there will always be enough people willing to do evil for money. It'll have to be shut down from the outside and that's where our focus should be.
by smilbandit
0 subcomment
- Did they recently add skulls on their badges and branded swag?
by mrhottakes
2 subcomments
- Taking a job at Spy Orbs For Evil Wizards Inc., reading the CEO's addled technofascist manifesto, and wondering if I'm the bad guy
- I remember seeing postings for "Forward Deployed Engineers" and thinking that this naming convention targets folks who don't like to work out but still have a military fetish and want to feel important.
It's self-aggrandizing egos all the way down/up (to Alex Karp).
- The title is likely a reference to a sketch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_We_the_Baddies%3F
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToKcmnrE5oY
Although it could be unintentional - the phrase is mainstream now and not hard to produce independently either.
by QuercusMax
5 subcomments
- For a company supposedly full of smart people they sure do work hard to turn their brains off
- Yea, the same innovations that enable freedom can also be used for control. What else is new?
- Are we the baddies?
https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri
- Starting???
by shevy-java
2 subcomments
- Starting to wonder?
Everyone know what Palantir was. The name is a dead-give-away.
I think it is really time that the superrich are downsized.
Certain companies that are working against the people also
need to be removed. Key considerations in any democracy need
to be consistent. Palantir (and others) create inconsistencies.
Granted, none of this will be fixed while the orange king is
having his daily rage-fits, but sooner or later this is an
inter-generational problem, no matter which puppet is taking
over.
- Oh please. Were they really so willfully ignorant not to know who they are working for and on what?
- Yes. The answer is yes.
- It was always really obvious but that recent full-throated-fascist manifesto has left no doubt. One thing Palantir have going for them is this deranged movie-villain-style transparency about their intentions, they don't even care about hiding it.
- > I'm going to tell you about how I took a job building software to kill people. But don't get distracted by that; I didn't know at the time.
— Caleb Hearth
1. https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBdBoWAtLNI
by digitaltrees
0 subcomment
- Eyes without the E
- Yes, the answer is yes they are.
by biker142541
0 subcomment
- “Starting”… hmmm
- This is trying to manage their personal image; they know exactly what they are and what they do.
They are just annoyed Karp is breaking Kayfabe
by dcchambers
0 subcomment
- The Department of Defense is now the Department of War. They've made their goals clear.
You are not in defense contracting. You are in the business of war contracting.
Take from that what you will.
- Wired does sanewashing now?
- Wired used to be a great magazine but has clearly deteriorated in reporting quality and focus since 2017 or so.
- Starting?
- I work at a non-defense tech company, and it's basically a running joke that no matter how bad the job market is, none of us are soulless enough to go looking for work at Palantir, even if the pay is good.
I would have trouble trusting the kind of person who would work at Palantir. It seems like it could be career-limiting in the long run.
by enlightenedfool
1 subcomments
- Is the morality different from being a citizen or tax payer of USA?
- I was once targeted for recruitment by Palantir. I looked into it, I decided not to apply. This was circa 2018. I think it'd be really difficult to justify to myself joining Palantir then, I can't even imagine doing it in 2026.
- Reminds me of the day I realized that, during my lifetime, my country, the US, caused the death of 1M Iraqis -- for no apparent reason.
by jeffrallen
0 subcomment
- I talked with a friend there around 2018 and he dissuaded me from applying, then quit a few months later. He already knew...
- Starting?!
by josefritzishere
0 subcomment
- To quote the Declaration of Independence "...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
by soVeryTired
0 subcomment
- The company is named after the evil telepathic orbs from lord of the rings. Wasn't that the first clue that everything might not be hunky dory?
by ubermonkey
0 subcomment
- They are, in fact, the bad guys.
by mystraline
0 subcomment
- Yes. Yes you all are.
Thats all.
- When your product is used by a military occupation to target and kill civilians and their families [1][2], it's kind of shocking that there's any doubt. But as Upton Sinclair said:
> “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
I would go further and argue that Palantir employees are just as valid military targets as occupation soldiers are.
[1]: https://www.business-humanrights.org/es/%C3%BAltimas-noticia...
[2]: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
- Honestly doesn't even look like they pay that well compared to other major tech companies.
Like why justify it if it economically isn't even that advantageous? Ya'll are laughable.
by eudamoniac
0 subcomment
- "a company named after J. R. R. Tolkien’s corrupting all-seeing orb"
Desperate for some negative sentiment aren't we? The orbs were not "corrupting" in any way. Can we just have reporting anymore without everything being slanted?
The "manifesto" Palantir posted seemed pretty reasonable to me given their company mission and alignment. I don't get the backlash. It's much less worse than what they're already accused of, I think. It doesn't make me think worse of them at all.
by Henchman21
0 subcomment
- Am I the only one that thinks that naming your company after a magical device that was corrupted by evil might be a bad look?
by sjsdaiuasgdia
2 subcomments
- Alex Karp is a fascist. The whole company should be ended.
- 'no shit sherlock' comes to mind.
by michaelsshaw
0 subcomment
- Little Eichmanns unable to feel good about themselves now that there's so much bad press? They should've known, in fact, most of them DID know about who they work for and what they do. They just can't handle the pressure. Name, shame and move on, fellas. No words worth listening to from Palantir employees.
by gigatexal
1 subcomments
- now? what took them so long??
- Another case where "starting" is the ha-ha-sob part. There's never been anything good about Palantir.
by next_xibalba
1 subcomments
- Mandatory public service is fascism? Deporting illegal immigrants is fascism?
There are ~68 countries with mandatory military service in the world [1]. To say nothing of countries with some other form of mandatory public service. How many of them are fascist?
The U.S., with the backing of widespread public support, passed bipartisan immigration enforcement laws in 1996 with an aim of rapid and mass deportation of illegal immigrants, and it was not viewed as "fascism". Those laws remained on the books since that time and were only recently under enforced with dramatic consequences.
I honestly feel like we're increasingly living in separate realities driven by media bubbles and wanton historical illiteracy and dishonesty.
[1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
- A real "Are we the baddies?" moment for them
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by Bengalilol
0 subcomment
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by tonetheman
0 subcomment
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by howmayiannoyyou
3 subcomments
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by PunchyHamster
0 subcomment
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by myth_drannon
2 subcomments
- Palantir must be working on something amazing if they are constantly assaulted by Iranian/Chinese bots,Left fascists,"but GenOcide in HAZA" and others. Curiously not Boieng, not drone companies, but Palantir.
Time to load up on Palantir stocks?
by ricardorivaldo
0 subcomment
- yes
by waffletower
1 subcomments
- The company also chose to name itself after a fantasy scrying device corrupted by evil. There might be an ounce of self-fulfilling prophecy here.
by mirrorlogic
0 subcomment
- Nerds are ruining this great nation.
by mirrorlogic
0 subcomment
- Nerds that did not get love in high school or college are ruining America.
- There's never been a single day in history without war. Indeed, there's never been a moment in all of biological life without violent conflict.
In high school, I had a visitor from West Point. My dad (Killing Fields survivor) was so excited. I (16 year old boy who only knew video games, porn and comics) later threw an impressive tantrum that defeated my father.
I threw away a golden ticket to see the world for what it is (instead of from within my cocoon in the suburbs of Los Angeles) and become a man at a more appropriate age.
Instead, I became an overpaid Peter Pan in San Francisco.
Theres some effect, I can't remember the name, where experts in one field (engineering) think they understand other fields (war) because they're so smart at their own field. I think this very much applies here.
If you're at Palantir and think you're the bad guy, first make the honest effort to convince yourself otherwise.
Failing that, leave and make room for patriots.
I don't like hurting others, but you really need to understand there are others that absolutely want to hurt you for basically no reason, and that hurting them first is highly effective, and as both firepower and intelligence (Palantir) improve, it becomes less fatal (clear historical trend).
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